Branflakes, apple and toast, to be stuck in Vegas

I noticed that in the North there are more old people on buses. Does this mean that people live longer in Yorkshire? I wondered why this could be. Perhaps a diet of fish and chips, and meat and Yorkshire pudding is healthier than any trying-too-hard Southern diet of Mediterranean food, and supermarket sushi? Perhaps the health giving benefits of eating fish and pasta are negated by the stresses of giving up all the yummy foods we've been brought up on? Northerners eat bacon sandwiches, stew and dumplings, and treacle tart and custard. The people in the North are fatter, but everyone knows fat people are jolly! I know it's supposed to be healthy to be thin, but scientific research has proved that happy people live longer. Yes, go stuff your smiling face with chocolate!

Of course the number of jolly pensioners on buses in the North might be nothing to do with old people being tubby fatsters. Something else I noticed was that the system of getting on buses is different in the North than in the South - they actually have a 'system' in the North. The Northerners even have a funny, quaint old fashioned word for this, they call it a 'queue'.

Obviously the pushing and shoving while using Southern public transport is stressful, the orderly way Northern pensioners board buses is bound to make them happier than the Southern oldies. And of course, scientific research has proven happy people live longer! It could even be that eating pasta and olive oil has led to Southerners developing a Mediterranean-style hot blooded nature; this means they're prepared to fight for the last seat on the bus, brandishing supermarket carrier's heavy with jars of Dolmio and packets of mixed peppers - also risking injury. If you eat a steak and kidney pie for lunch you won't cause that kind of trouble.

Of course like most things these days, musing about pensioners, makes me think of Steve. He's been away over a week now, but I haven't blogged about how much I miss him. I'm trying to show some restraint! He's busy and working long hours at the WSOP in Vegas, but we've been in touch every day, we've used texts, emails, phone calls, messenger, I sent him a post card from Whitby, even a letter containing some stickers to stick.

Steve's main concern in Vegas, aside from being shouted at for not reading his boss's mind, is the food. He says it's stodge. He hates stodge. He just wants toast and bran flakes for breakfast, instead he gets gigantic muffins topped with treacle, sugar-sprinkles and nuts. He found fruit (it wasn't easy) but said he expected to open the banana and find it chocolate coated. A recent email said 'we spent $198 on donner'. I thought he meant kebabs. It wasn't actually, but I like his funny spelling mistakes. He writes quickly and tired at the end of the day, when he can get his laptop off the other writer. Apparently his colleague, Barron sometimes, 'finds retty girls and stares at them.'

Every time I saw a pensioner couple on a York bus I'd decide that Steve and I would be like that one day. It doesn't sound very romantic does it? Yet being wrinkly and retired sometimes seems like our best hope of spending significant time together.

I'm glad Steve is eating the right sort of food, Vegas serves a Northern diet, lard sandwiches with stodge pie for dessert. He'll come home happy and fat. We'll wait at a bus stop together, queuing while everyone else pushes in. I like this, waiting at a bus stop means time to chat, and if we don't get a seat he might put his arms around me to support me as we stand. I think we'll catch buses like this until we both have bus passes and pensions. Steve might eat healthy bran flakes, apples and toast when he gets back to England, but I know we'll be jolly because we're together.